New user struggling.

I have an existing internal 80gb hard drive

I added a new usb2 external 160gb hard drive to my pc. I plugged it in and partitioned it into 90gb and 65gb. The first being primary K drive and the second logical L drive – is that correct. I then used Acronis true image to add a secure zone of 30 gb within this first primary partition K. The idea being was to back up the C drive on my existing 80gb internal hard drive (divided into 30gb primary partition for operating system and programs and second logical partition for doing video editing in) onto the new K drive secure zone. Then to activate start-up recovery manager which allows you to boot using the F11 key in the event of windows not booting up. This allows you to start acronis and then use the image of the operating system on the K drive to start up a clean version. It may be that because I did not copy the image across first that before I activated the start up recovery manager it came up with an error in acronis – since in reality there was no image of the O/S there.

When I later booted up windows my pc would not work but as soon as i switched off my external hard drive then it booted up ok. It looks like its trying to boot from my external drive. I have tried to change bios but still not working.

I started again and this time made two logical partitions and put the secure zone in one. I copied my c drive into the secure zone no problem. But when i went to switch on restore manager it says that i cannot do it from this drive even although it will not let me choose the drive. And of course the pc will not boot.
Can anyone take me through the steps monkey fashion as i am totally baffled and so are the non acronis users on another forum i use.

 

“This allows you to start acronis and then use the image of the operating system on the K drive to start up a clean version.”
I don’t think you have this quite right. F11 (Startup Recovery Manager) will boot from the Secure Zone and launch TI, similar to booting from the rescue/recovery CD. You can then use TI to backup/restore. F11 does not boot into a backup image and you do not need to have ever created one first (of course there will be nothing to restore from). Therefore, the following is incorrect – “It may be that because I did not copy the image across first that before I activated the start up recovery manager it came up with an error in acronis – since in reality there was no image of the O/S there.” In other words – you do not need to have ever created a backup in order for the F11 SRM to function.
The SZ is really designed for those who only have 1 drive. If you have additional drives (external or internal) on which to store backups, forget about the SZ.
Since it seems you can boot and run TI (“I started again and this time made two logical partitions and put the secure zone in one”), the first thing I’d do is launch TI and delete the SZ. This should also deactivate the SRM and put your MBR (which TI changes when you select SRM) back as it was.
If everything boots/runs as it should, then just use the external drive to store your backups on. If you need to restore and you can’t boot into Windows, use the Rescue CD (that you should have created and tested) to boot from and run TI from there.

 

Wow what a weaz if you pardon the pun. Thanks for the quick reply. I am on a basic computer forum and no one seemed to know anything about TI. So am glad i eventually found this through the Acronis site. I did download the manual but wasn't sure of the order of doing things and think it would have been useful to have several examples like my one listed so folk can be guided.

So i'm away to delete the secure zone.
Are these logical partitions which are left ok - they don't have to be primary or anything else?

So basically can i leave my backup of the c drive on one of these partitions.
If windows ever fails to boot up then i can use the recover disks that i made to put in my A drive to get into acronis.
Do i use the recovery wizard and choose the partition where my c drive and programs are held.
What happens next - does it copy that drive across to replace the original c drive and all its contents.

Thanks again for putting me on the right track - hopefully you can correct me if i've wandered off again.

 

So, your recovery disks are floppies? How many? I’ve only burned CDs for the recovery media. The reason I ask is that if there’s a whole bunch of them, maybe there’s a different approach.
I’m thinking that you could create a Secure Zone (the smallest possible size) on your C drive. Then activate the SRM. You would never actually use the SZ to store backup images, but it would be available to boot from if Windows fails. Might be easier than using several floppies, although I’d still keep them around just in case.
You would create and store the backups on the external and just use the SZ & SRM as a “when all else fails” sorta thing.
Yes, for recovery you just step through the Wizard. It will prompt you for what backup file to restore from, where you want to restore to etc. What happens next is dependent on if you are restoring from a partition image or a full disk image. That should all be in the manual.
You can cancel the restore at any time up to the point when you select Proceed. Once you click Proceed, you’re off and running. So, it’s not a bad idea to go ahead and go through a trial run to get acquainted with the process – just don’t click Proceed.

 

Yep it asked for 5 floppies but in the end it only took 4. I was put off burning a cd as a lot of people said they had problems with some of their burners not being compatible and the one i have is not a popular one - long live floppy

I might give the setting up of a SZ on the c drive a try although it did seem to put a minimum of about 30 gb i think when i first tried it, which would be too much for my c drive. But will try it just for the hell of it.

I have deleted the old SZ and repartitioned my new drive into nice little pockets and copied my c drive onto one of them. The only thing which is still not working is when i boot up. If i have the external drive plugged in then it still wants to boot from it instead of my main drive. If i plug it in later then it boots up ok and its not really a problem. But it looks like the MBR thing that you were speaking about has not untangled itself. As i say as long as it works and backs up then its not a problem, but i wandered if you or anyone knows whether this is a known problem or i've just got unlucky, or whether there was a quick fix. If the worst came to worst would reinstalling and starting again cure it, cos now that i know what i'm doing almost then it would not take me long.
Anyway thanks again for all your help. The manual is comprehensive but sometimes just a nudge in the right direction is all that's needed. Cheers mate

 

Hello footsore,

Did you just "delete" the SZ or did you remove it via the Manage Acronis Secure Zone wizard? It should've been the latter. Notwithstanding, there are a number of ways of resetting the MBR to standard. Probably the most foolproof way (you didn't say which O/S you're using) is to download and run the "mbrautowrite.exe" file as per the forum sticky titled <Please Read Before You Post>.

Regards

 

Thanks to all you guys. I was on this site last night after i got an email from the tech team..............hey they responded to my email within 2 days. They told me to use the fixmbr command from windows recovery mode. I had been on another forum and some of the guys were having problems with that and i wasn't too sure about mucking about. However the acronis tech also gave me this link http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/faq.html#25

on their web site and it had a fix which you put on a floppy. This is probably the one Mernorcaman is on about. I did what it said and it came up with an error about not finding the partition or summit for the first few times. However i wasn't quite sure about my floppy so did it again and gave it some time to work and the error had gone but i was left with my pc saying ''no command to boot'' or something like that. Oh well i thought that it hadn't worked.
HOWEVER when i booted up my pc everything is working again. I know have a small secure zone on my main hard drive with no backup on it (quicker than my floppies) .....just so i can get into acronis if my pc won't boot(not much space to back up o/s on my c drive ). The recovery manager is activated. And i have my c drive with O/S backed up on my external hard drive ready to copy across. I also have 4 floppies to boot up from if that doesn't work. So hopefully i have done everything right.

Thanks to all you guys for helping me. If there's anything that still doesn't look correct then please let me know. I think the main thing is that you don't really need a SZ if you have the o/s backed up on an external drive, its only really for those with one hard drive.